Ban hurts business, not smokers

I, a non-smoker, recently debated the growing phenomenon of municipal smoking bans with a smoker. Not surprisingly, we disagreed about my rights as a non-smoker versus his as a smoker, but we came to agree that certain businesses whose models are based on providing people a relaxing place to eat, drink, and smoke have surely been hurt by the ban.

We also agreed that property rights are sacrosanct in America, and that, in principle, if not always practice, the U.S. offers investors and entrepreneurs the promise that they will enjoy a stable rule of law, free from nationalization and arbitrary changes in regulations.

Furthermore, if legislation is enacted which harms their businesses, they are free to seek redress in court. In this case, bar and restaurant owners developed their business models based on the understanding that they would be able to offer their customers a place to smoke.

While these properties may remain just as valuable as a site for, say, an auto parts store, they are certainly now less attractive as locations for bars and restaurants.

Several pieces of research, which indicate that business suffers at bars and restaurants when smoking bans are enacted, support this theory. For example, a study in New York City found that revenue in bars dropped by twenty percent following their smoking ban.

It's doubtful that smokers simply stay home when bans are enacted, and there is evidence which shows that the piecemeal approach to smoking bans results in business being lost to the nearest town, county, or state which allows smoking in businesses.

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study found that a smoking ban causes an initial increase of 13 percent in alcohol-related automobile fatalities; the figure climbs to 19 percent after 18 months. Whatever these figures say about the wisdom of smoking bans, an obvious corollary is that people are willing to travel to find a smoking-friendly jurisdiction. In our case, it's only a ten-mile drive from central Hattiesburg to bars outside the city limits.

Despite concerns over infringement of property rights, smoking bans are based on a solid legal precedent of weighing said rights against the common good. It is often argued that people who don't want to endure smoky places should spend their money elsewhere and let the market speak. By that logic, however, a business owner would be allowed to exclude customers based on race, or any number of illegal factors, and we can only imagine how the local market would respond to a racially segregated bar.

Ultimately, I believe the City of Hattiesburg was right to ban smoking in public places, even if it did harm some businesses. Secondhand smoke is a proven carcinogen, and it's unwise to subject the general public to this threat, and unjust to force employees to work under dangerous conditions. Weighing the common good against individual rights is a delicate matter, however, and in future situations, the city should offer tax credits or some other compensation which reflects the damage done to an affected business.